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OUTPOST MESSAGES 




OUTPOST MESSAGES 


BY 


FANNY PURDY PALMER 


WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
BY HER DAUGHTER 


“Break the dance and scatter the song, 

Let some depart and some remain, . . . 

PANTHEA. Ha! They are gone! 
lONE. Yet feel you no delight 

From the past sweetness?” 

Chorus of Hours and Spirits 
Shelley’s “Prometheus Unbound” 



0 > > 


BOSTON 


THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY 


PUBLISHERS 




Copyright, 1924, hy 
The Four Seas Company 

fSsssf 

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The Four Seas Press 
Boston, Mass., U.S.A. 


AUG -8 1924 

©C1A800412 


>1^ I 


“I stood beside her, but she saw me not— 

She looked upon the sea, and skies, and earth; 

Rapture and love and admiration wrought 
A passion deeper far than tears, or mirth. 

Or speech, or gesture, or whate’er has birth 
From common joy; which, with the speechless feeling 
That led her there united, and shot forth 
From her far eyes, a light of deep revealing, 

All but her dearest self from my regard concealing.” 

SHELLEY. “Laon and Cythna.” XL 4. 


k 


FANNY PURDY PALMER 


verses entitled by Mrs. Palmer Outpost 
A Messages were written during the last four years 
of her life, when she was in her eighties. They supple¬ 
ment her Sonnets of California, 1909; Of the Valley 
and the Sea, 1912; and Dates and Days in Europe, 
1914, and constitute a record of the closing years of an 
active and many-sided life. 

Fanny Purdy was born in New York City, in 1839. 
The family were then living in a pleasant old house 
in Rutgers Street, at the East end of Canal Street, but 
within walking distance of St. John’s Park and old 
St. Thomas’ Church, where, according to the family 
Bible, her father and mother were married ‘at five 
o’clock in the morning.’ When she was three years 
old a small visitor at the house exclaimed upon her 
return home, “It’s all true, Mr. Purdy’s baby can 
read!” And indeed her love of books and romantic 
temperament were inherited from her father, while 
the early formed habit of thinking for herself was a 
characteristic of her mother’s family, the Sharps, 
settled in Albany as fur traders during the Colonial 
period, and of the Loyalist Purdys of Revolutionary 
date: 

My ancestors, ’t is true, stood by their King, 
Resigned their homesteads to the People’s will. 

And in Tioga’s wilds—were loyal still! 

In the neighborhood of ‘Tioga’s wilds’—in the fam¬ 
ily homes at Spencer, Elmira, Owego and Bath, my 
mother passed much of her girlhood, for her father 
died when she was quite young, leaving no other legacy 
than a well-stocked library of poetry and romance. 

At the age of seven or eight she went, with her small 
cousin Judith, to live in the home of an energetic and 

[ 7 ] 


OUTPOST MESSAGES 


educated lady, the wife of a sea captain who had re¬ 
tired to a farm. Here the instruction devised by Mrs. 
White, and carried on without the use of text-books, 
consisted in a constant round of piano practice and 
French dictation. Holidays were unknown. After 
the Sunday drive to church the little girls read 
Pilgrim's Progress, or looked at the illustrations in 
the large family Bible. On pleasant week-days they 
walked on the shell paths that bordered an old-fash¬ 
ioned garden, in which grew poppies and artemisia, 
and on gala occasions in winter the colored boy was 
permitted to draw the ‘little ladies’ about the grounds, 
on a large wooden sled. Pages of French poetry and 
prose were committed to memory during the long 
winter evenings, when—I have heard my mother say— 
the utmost felicity that could be extracted from life 
consisted in watching Captain White blow the chaff 
from the seeds he was preparing for market, or in 
coaxing the cat to come and lie in her lap. In after 
years, however, she fully recognized the value of this 
unique early training that furnished a solid background 
for her later education. 

When she was fifteen or sixteen she began to write 
for a New York county newspaper, of which her uncle 
was editor, and a year later, for the Home Journal, 
and Putnam's and Peterson's magazines—tender, 
sentimental verses acceptable to the readers of that 
day, or lively narrative poems of some length, such 
as Harold the Earl: 

Like the tall pine his form— 

Upright against the storm— 

His hand-clasp firm and warm 
His locks bright flow 
Made my swift Norse blood leap 
With sudden glow. 

[8] 


FANNY PURDY PALMER 

On her marriage in 1862 she accompanied my father, 
a surgeon in the Third New York Cavalry, to the 
South. During the war she was obliged to part with 
her father s early-Victorian library, only three volumes 
of which survived—his Bible, with passages from 
Shelley inscribed on the fly-leaves, and the complete 
poetical works of Byron and Thomas Moore. The 
latter must have been read and re-read by my mother 
in her early girlhood, for they are delicately penciled 
throughout with marginal notes and comments, as in¬ 
numerable passages struck her fancy. 

Oh! blissful meeting—in another world, of hearts thus 
purified— 

exclaims the child of a romantic age, at the conclusion 
of the story of Zelica and Azim. And opposite the 
lines: 

—one dear glance, 

Like those of old, were heav’n! 

she has written: 

Alas, it may not be—when do we meet, as we have part¬ 
ed? In the present we may never react the past. The 
watchword of existence is—Change. 

Quite recently, on hearing Thomas Moore referred 
to, my mother smiled, and began to repeat a long pass¬ 
age from Lalla Rookh, adding—with more loyalty than 
conviction, perhaps—“Yes, that is still poetry!” 

Mrs. Palmer throughout the war contributed occa¬ 
sional short stories and verses to Harper's Monthly 
and Harper's Weekly, as well as letters to northern 
newspapers, and beginning with the first volume of 
The Galaxy, became a fairly frequent contributor at 

[9] 


OUTPOST MESSAGES 


a time when Walt Whitman, Henry James, Jr., John 
Burroughs, Edward Everett Hale, Mark Twain, and 
others of our literati were writing for its pages. 

In these early short stories, faintly reminiscent of 
the war, are some sympathetic studies of Southern 
negroes—^blacks, quadroons, and octaroons. The story 
of A Woman, published in the Galaxy in 1866, with 
its central figure of a quadroon, is possibly the earliest 
portrait in our magazine literature of an emancipated 
slave—emancipated from serfdom, but not from in¬ 
heritance and tradition. For my mother—no longer 
a Romanticist—but adopting the naturalistic method, 
is already seeking for cause and effect in race and 
environment, and the opening scene of desolation and 
foreboding supplies the motif of a theme, tragic but 
not fatalistic. She was not inclined to press racial 
analogies too far, and in the case of the colored people, 
whose fortunes she continued to follow with affection¬ 
ate solicitude, she detected a strength of character and 
steadfastness of purpose that she had not dreamed of 
at the time of the war. 

During the year following the close of the war. when 
my father was in charge of Stuart Hospital, at Rich¬ 
mond, Virginia, and after their removal to Rhode 
Island, my mother continued to write. From 1869, for 
an uninterrupted period of nearly twenty years she 
contributed a story, each month, to the columns of 
the True Flag. The character of this weekly is set 
forth in a flamboyant prospectus issued during the 
war:— 

THE TRUE FLAG 

A JOURNAL FOR EVERY HOME 
Acknowledged to be the pioneer newspaper of its class, 
having originated the system of no continued stories, and 
no advertisements it has outlived a host of imitators and 
[10] 


FANNY PURDY PALMER 


still distances all competitors. It is not limited to any 
class or district but cheers the homes and gladdens the 
firesides of every loyal state in the Union. Our corps of 
contributors comprise the liveliest story tellers and num¬ 
bers many of the best authors of the day. In respect to 
the future we shall faithfully adhere to our own well-tried 
system of avoiding tedious novelettes and giving each week 
throughout the year a condensed and spicy compendium 
of reading for the people. 

My mother’s connection with this paper was a for¬ 
tunate one, for the True Flag was edited by an enlight¬ 
ened and cultivated Boston gentleman, Mr. William 
U. Moulton, whose wife, Louise Chandler Moulton, 
was a frequent contributor, both before and after her 
marriage. The large circulation of the paper, and the 
fact that he took upon himself the burden of compila¬ 
tion, enabled Mr. Moulton to pay liberally the small 
staff of women contributors to whose talents he al¬ 
lowed free scope. The stories contributed by my 
mother nearly always fell short of the required length, 
but were invariably accepted, although she often jeo¬ 
pardized their fate by ending them according to her 
fancy, as in the case of April and August, where the 
hero—uniquely abandoned at the end of the tale—is 
left waiting in the parlor for an answer to his mar¬ 
riage proposal. 

Mr. Moulton, for once, protested, and the ending 
was changed, but restored later, in a volume of stories 
that bore upon the title-page the motto: 

For several virtues 
Have I lik’d several women. 

In these True Flag stories every known virtue of the 
sex is chronicled, for my mother was an ardent femin- 
[II] 


OUTPOST MESSAGES 


ist. She had faith, especially, in the women who sub¬ 
mit themselves to the discipline of professional life, 
and the frequency with which her heroines embark 
on professional careers could not have been without 
its effect upon the rising generation of True Flag 
readers. 

Her first story for the True Flag—Forever and Ever 
—recounts the history of an orphan girl, the daughter 
of an organist, who completes her musical training 
and recovers her poise, after many trials. At the time 
this story was written I was two years, and my brother 
was three months, old. 

At a very early age I recollect my mother as a grave 
and gracious presence that presided over my destinies. 
When I brought her my first bunch of wilting butter¬ 
cups, she gathered them into her hands, and put them 
in a glass of water, where I watched them revive in 
the cool air of the nursery. One Qiristmas morning, 
when I stumbled on the stairs, and broke the bottle of 
cologne intended for her present—this calamity being 
announced by an outburst of tears in which my 
brother joined!—she comforted us by saying that it 
was a very pleasant thing to have christened the house 
with perfume 11 next associate her with certain Sunday 
afternoons when one or two women writers met to 
read their manuscripts—meetings unfortunately timed, 
in the opinion of my brother and myself, as they in¬ 
terfered with the Shakespeare readings that were a 
regular feature of the day. I can see my brother, now, 
lying flat upon the parlor floor, and gazing up into 
my mother's face, as she read of ‘The man that once 
did sell the lion's skin while the beast liv'd. . ." Some 
years later she read aloud, The Return of the Native. 
I recall every detail of this reading—even to the fact 
that my mother paused and looked out of the window, 
when she came to the line—“A beauty with a black 
[ 12 ] 


FANNY PURDY PALMER 


mane, and a face as white as snow/' I realize now, 
that she made the utmost use of her slender resources. 
When I was sick she brought Landseer’s engraving 
of the girl and deer from the parlor, and hung it on 
the wall opposite my bed, and on my return from a 
visit away from home she met me, looking very tall 
and elegant in a black gown with a train, and wearing 
rings on her fingers—having dressed thus, no doubt, 
to enliven the occasion! From her we children learned 
much of the poetry that she recited or sung to us, and 
many of the French phrases and literary allusions that 
flavored her conversation. On one of our walks, when 
she admired, or seemed to admire, a hand-painted 
Easter egg suspended by a blue ribbon in a shop win¬ 
dow, and I offered to buy it for her, she replied with 
the utmost gravity: “We mustn’t covet the flesh-pots 
of Egypt.” 

From the time of the Centennial I associate her 
more and more with local activities, as the meetings at 
our house increased in number and frequency, or as¬ 
sumed a public character. Suffrage meetings, with 
speakers from Boston, were inaugurated, and there 
were suffrage suppers famed for their good fellowship, 
and suffrage petitions for which few signatures could 
be obtained, and suffrage hearings before the Legisla¬ 
ture from which the petitioners were annually ‘given 
leave to withdraw.’ And there were Sunday meet¬ 
ings, with a similar clientele, of the Free Religious 
Society, and evening meetings of a Herbert Spencer 
club. And at the time, nothing came of these meetings 
but an intellectual awakening among a small group of 
people, and the enthusiastic discussions and affection¬ 
ate friendships that cluster around new movements. 

The various public offices held by my mother at this 
period of her life kept her in touch with the men and 
women of the state. Her long term of service as a 

[ 13 ] 


OUTPOST MESSAGES 


member of the Providence School Committee—the 
only public office then open to the women of Rhode 
Island—familiarized her with the procedure of public 
bodies and the educational needs of the city; and her 
official connection as secretary of the Rhode Island 
Woman Suffrage Association and president of the 
Rhode Island Women's Club, came at the most inter¬ 
esting period of their history. What small influence 
she had was used in indirect ways to further the in¬ 
terests of younger professional women. And this help 
was the more appreciated because it was unlooked for, 
and usually came at the darkest moment of a career. 
My mother was keen to detect a rising wind, and her 
alert mind was ever on the lookout for the new oppor¬ 
tunities opening to women. When the prospects for 
the admission of women to Brown University seemed 
most remote she manoeuvred diligently, and tacked and 
veered, hugged the shore and stood out to sea, until 
she led a small group of women to a conference with 
President Andrews that brought about the millennium. 

But as these various movements lost their pioneer 
character, her interest in them waned, and she retired to 
the companionship of her books. She now added to her 
library Lecky’s History of Rationalism; Mill, On 
Liberty; Lewes' History of Philosophy; Taine's Eng¬ 
lish Literatur e; and eight volmes of Spencer's Syn¬ 
thetic Philosophy. These last bulge with manuscript 
notes, abstracts and synopses of chapters, and restate¬ 
ments of cardinal principles:— 

It is denied that the Ideal conceived by man is superior 
to the real as it is conceived in itself.—Man lowers the 
real by his inadequate apprehension of it.—Psychology 
seeks the law of correlation.—The scope of Psychology: 
The laws of the relations between my states of feelings 
and the operations of my nervous system, p. 98, vol. I. 

[14] 


FANNY PURDY PALMER 


But the belief that they are related is of a remotely infer¬ 
ential character (like the ‘interpretation of verbal signs’) 
p. 100; etc., etc. 

My mother was at home among her books, and 
records her devotion to them in lines of unaffected 
simplicity: 

I love you well, beloved! Companions dear, 

Lewes! ’t was through thy subtle insight clear 
I first divined the dispensation new; 

Then, Laureate, burst thy vision on my view— 

Of “statelier Edens” seen from poet’s sphere. 

Pale Bronte, and thou stronger woman-soul. 

Your patient strength has lightened all my load; 
Spencer! thy mighty grasp will ere control 
My toiling thought along truth’s arduous road. 

Each page meets eyes of mine with charmed looks. 

My heart is yours, O little band of books! 

Poetry and philosophy, ethics and esthetics were to 
her one and the same thing. Each, a— 

Portal set apart 

For Sage, for student, and the pure in heart; 

and the small library of books that grew with her 
needs reflected the growth of her mind, rather than a 
diversity of tastes. 

In 1893 Mrs. Palmer prepared for the Rhode Island 
exhibit at the World’s Columbian Exposition, A List 
of Rhode Island Literary Women; with some account 
of their work. This unpretentious bibliography in¬ 
volved her in a vast amount of labor, but brought her 
in contact with the women writers of the State, and 


OUTPOST MESSAGES 


led to the formation of the Rhode Island Short Story 
Club, a group of professional literary women. The List 
is not an impressive one, but contains a good many 
curious bits of information about local writers supplied 
by Mr. Sidney S. Rider, and is much in demand. My 
mother records the fact that a woman was at one time 
the editor and publisher of the first Rhode Island news¬ 
paper. While of her old friend and leader in the suf¬ 
frage movement, Mrs. Elizabeth Buffum Chace, a con¬ 
tributor to various publications ''on topics connected 
with the abolition of slavery, the enfranchisement of 
women, the claims of the children of the State, the 
rights of the North American Indian, the value of ar¬ 
bitration,” she remarks in passing: 

Never rode to the wrong’s redressing 

A worthier paladin. 

In time the True Flag ran its course, and the long 
apprenticeship that had given my mother an easy com¬ 
mand of her pen came to an end. For a while she suc¬ 
ceeded in writing serial stories for one of the New 
York journals, but literary tastes were changing, new 
and younger writers were entering the field, and she 
at length found a new outlet for her activities. 

In 1894, on her appointment as State Factory In¬ 
spector for Rhode Island she gave up writing and de¬ 
voted her time to the duties of the new office. She was 
not a sentimentalist and for this reason was the better 
able to impress her views on hard-headed mill super¬ 
intendents. At that time the Rhode Island factories 
swarmed with children of French Canadian parentage 
who were under age. As it was difficult—in fact, im¬ 
possible—to learn the truth from their parents my 
mother would ask of every child she met, *‘Quel age 
avez-vous ?'*—a question that usually elicited a correct 
[16] 


FANNY PURDY PALMER 


response. In case of doubt she would write to the 
parish priest in Canada for a copy of the birth certifi¬ 
cate. Persistent efforts at length drove the small 
children from the mills. When my mother remarked 
one day to the overseer of a spinning room, “Isn’t that 
child under age?” “No,” he replied doggedly. “But 
I don’t intend to keep him here. He spoils the looks 
of the roomT 

With her usual thoroughness she inspected the mills 
early and often, penetrating to remote country dis¬ 
tricts where official visitors were seldom seen. On one 
occasion, finding the mill closed she jotted down, while 
waiting for the train, her impressions of the day. These 
present a homely picture of New England village life 
thirty years ago, during a period of industrial depres¬ 
sion—difficult to realize—when there was not work 
enough for all. 

AN IDLE MILL 

A thick wood of chestnuts and birches—at the base, 
ferns growing breast high and startled columbines stand¬ 
ing alone in patches— 

The path to the Mill is scarcely discernible. 

“Which way to the Mill?” The station agent of whom 
I enquired was reading a letter. He looked up. “The 
shortest way is along the track. Go about as far again 
as the first switch, turn to your right and cross the trestle. 
You’ll see the chimney. It’s safe walking, and nearer 
than the road.” 

The train which had just disappeared was warranted 
not to repeat itself till late in the afternoon, and I had, 
therefore, the track to myself. It was a peaceful looking 
grass-grown track—no-way suggestive of catastrophies. 
The blue June sky was veiled with a faint haze, with here 
and there a light cloud floating lazily eastward. There 
were woods to the left—birch and chestnut. A water 


OUTPOST MESSAGES 


cours6 rushed under the trestle, with tall grasses and blue 
flag alongside. The mill stood in the distance. I looked 
and listened. But the rushing water was the only sound. 
The Mill was still. The curtains were undrawn. The 
machinery could be seen through the windows—ready to 
resume its functions. The passage through the offlce 
building was open at each end and a comfortable room 
fitted with desks and chairs could be seen, like the looms 
in the mill, ready for work—but empty. 

Across the road and up and down as far as one could 
see, stood the tenements, with the grass grown high in 
the door yards, the shades down. Unoccupied. Up on the 
rising ground was a fine house—the closed blinds faded 
with sun and rain, the gate fastened, no sign of life with¬ 
out or within. I walked the length of the village street 
without meeting a living thing. It was a fair rolling coun¬ 
try, a pleasant place to be, but it was a deserted village, 
a body without a soul. A little way on stood a small 
schoolhouse, the door wide open. Thankful for a sign of 
life I stepped into the open doorway. A prepossessing 
gentleman was teaching a dozen children. He paused to 
invite me in, and politely directed me to the nearest 
farmhouse. 

“Walk in,” said the mistress of the house. “Some 
one to carry you to-? I’ll see if Miss Korn’s work¬ 

ing her horse to-day. The Mill? Oh, the mill’s been 
closed ten years or more. There’s an agent lives here to 
look after the property, and sometimes the insurance 
people come around to look it over. I’d be glad to see 
times as they were when it used to run. Why, there aren’t 
more than seven or eight families left in the town. I’ve 
got four children. My son works on the road. When my 
boy was a little shaver he used to ask the Super, Mr. 
Pierre Dempsey, ‘When are you going to start the mill?’ 
and Mr. Pierre would say, ‘When you’re big enough to work 
for me, Jimmy, I’ll start the mill.’” 

[i8] 



FANNY PURDY PALMER 


“And what do the girls do?” “Oh, there ain’t nothing 
for them to do—more’n housework. The eldest one she 

had a job in the-Mill and went there and back 

on the train morning and night before the trouble. She’s 
hoping they’ll settle the strike so as she can go back to 
work. There’s Miss Korn coming. Yes, she’ll hitch up 
and drive you on if you’ll pay her a dollar.” 

A small volume of sonnets, published in San Fran¬ 
cisco in 1909, was the fruit of several years’ residence 
in California. Here the ebb and flow of a life de¬ 
tached from the main current, and wholly different 
from that of New England, left on my mother’s mind 
an impression of splendor and unreality. California, 
with its romantic past and unstereotyped present, 
seemed to her a land of infinite possibilities for the 
free play of individual energies and the development 
of creative impulses, and she ventured on a confident 
prediction for the future: 

Composite, unassimilable, crude 
As Her unsmelted ores, the social state 
Where differing races struggle to create 
Their planes of life anew. Needs must intrude 
Fallacious dreams, false reasonings which delude 
Th’ unpracticed mind; But, She’ll in time be great 
Enough to find, amid the turns of fate. 

The Way to shun— the Way to be pursued. 

Purples and gold in groves and orchards glow, 

And, housed in pearl, the Abalones cling 
To the wet rocks: Mid fairest scenes at home 
Her people dwell, and tides of travel fiow 
From ends of earth;—Such various folk they bring 
As once they brought up to the Caesars’ Rome. 

Owing to impaired eyesight that limited reading or 

[19] 



OUTPOST MESSAGES 


writing to a few minutes a day, and obliged her to re¬ 
cord in sonnet form the impressions that crowded her 
brain, my mother spent much of her time in the open. 
She was now seventy, but tireless in her energies. She 
made several gardens, one of them a garden by the 
sea—at Santa Cruz: 

So close, the breakers tossed among the flowers 
Their flecks of foam! 

and on the long walks that she took she was sustained 
by her imaginative hopes, and a resolute will, as she 
wandered in strangely silent and beautiful places—in 
remote spots, where— 

the Shooting Star 

With its pale grace and scent of solitude,— 

A Spirit more than blossom—flowers alone 
Within the Canyon’s jealous heart, unknown. 


or— 

in the muffled Wood 

Where ferns refreshed their plumy branches spread. 
And Lilacs bud, as if they understood 
This medium of Dreams wherein we tread 
Beset by sparkling chains the spiders spin,— 
While from th’ unsated sea the fog rolls in. 

During occasional visits to London my mother 
wrote a considerable number of little poems that re¬ 
flect her mood as a dweller in the great city of which 
she felt herself to be a part. From our lodging-house 
window in Bloomsbury she looked out in the twilight 
at the dim shapes passing and repassing in a November 
fog that, to her, ‘commemorates the multitude’: 

[20] 


FANNY PURDY PALMER 


Coming and going, blurred against the rain, 

Absorbing as they pass the early gloom, 

I see the people, through my window-pane— 

See—when the firelight falters in the room, 

The posts and lintels dim that frame the Square 
Clad in the vague grey dominoes they wear . . . 

And again, from the Thames Embankment and 
Boadicea’s statue, she saw London transformed by the 
touch of Spring: 

. . . Ere one knows 

What *t is that’s happening, a sudden green 
Comes to the pointed buds that stand between 
You and the sky: And in the narrow close 
Of a small Square, the pale pink Almond blows. 

At this time her memory served her well. As we 
read Gibbon’s Rome she stored in her mind pictures 
that unfolded themselves in a later series of sonnets. 
She followed with interest even such dark reading as 
that of Meredith’s poetry, which she likens to a kind 
of wine: 

Subtlest of potions! Rare compoundings brewed 
From secrets of the soul when an eclipse 
Reveals them! Bitter-sweet upon the lips 
And aether to the brain, the draught renewed 
Sustains us, tho’ its pungencies delude: 

And if the toxic exaltation trips 

The feet on common roads, it still equips 

For paths beyond the paths we’ve yet pursued. 

The lure of 'paths beyond’ finally beckoned my 
mother, for a second time, to Rome. 

[ 21 ] 


OUTPOST MESSAGES 


White and blue, 

The city of my thoughts lies spread to view— 
Under the argent of December skies . . 

she wrote in retrospect—no longer a stranger within 
the gates of the modern capital, as she had described 
herself upon a former visit: 

As we approach the city the train increases its speed 
a little. Our travelling companions suddenly grow quiet, 
and begin to cast anxious glances at the huge portman¬ 
teaus stowed solidly in the racks overhead. Suddenly 
the door of the compartment opens. The blue-frocked 
fachinos are waiting for the terrible luggage, and a long 
vista of approved modern station accommodation meets 
the eye. Naples greets you with friendly interest from 
the moment your luggage is deposited on the marble 
steps on the custom house. Naples is glad to see you. The 
concierge of your house suspects that you are an artist 
and flings open the window upon a balcony, with a shy 
smile at your pleasure in the street below. The shopkeeper 
eyes you kindly as he readjusts his corals. Even the lean, 
large-eyed cab horse, chewing his frugal but aesthetic 
meal of crimson clover, seems to meditate as to whether 
you will drive to Pompeii or take the train! But Rome 
pays little heed to the newcomer and you feel an op¬ 
pressed wonderment as to whether in the maze of mod¬ 
ernity you will be able to find the antiquity you have 
come in search of. 

It is noon of the second day. We descend the long steep 
flights through the tower of the Capital. The April air 
'is warm. Some boys in costume are sunning themselves 
on the steps. A flower-girl thrusts a bunch of pansies into 
the buttom-hole of my jacket. The people are taking their 
nooning, stretched prone upon the pavement and steps of 
the churches, or are eating their long black roll of bread. 

[ 22 ] 


FANNY PURDY PALMER 


I am tired, but I do not care to rest. I am hungry, but 
I do not care to eat. The feeling of estrangement has 
altogether vanished. The Rome of my dreams is real, 
and I am at home in it. 

From Rome she brought a'way, in 1914, some 
thoughtful verses on the Campagna; a diminutive 
block of marble from the House of the Vestals—which 
she always intended to return; a small image of a 
dancing faun wrapped in cotton wadding, and these 
two quatrains to his memory: 

He danced for joy because the world was fair 
And rhythm caught his footsteps unaware. 

Too wise, too indiscreet—his only care 
Was, that the fruits of mischief fell elsewhere. 

Airy escape from brooding Nature’s plan; 

A' promise—still to be redeemed to Man: 

His loves so light we’ll not too closely scan— 
Those loves wherewith Love’s troubles all began. 

In the spring of 1914 we journeyed on to England, 
and settled ourselves in the suburbs of London: 

I recall (writes my mother) the early warmth and 
charm of that Spring and Summer which now seem very 
far away, and, with them, that sense of repose to which 
one has lived—as I have—a rather long and busy life, feels, 
for some unexplained reason, entitled. 

Then, one August morning, there appeared a brief head¬ 
line in the newspaper whose import every startled reader 
understood at a glance. There were only five words: 
“Britain will not desert France,” but they seemed to alter 
the aspect of the universe. Henceforth, ease and repose, 

[23] 


OUTPOST MESSAGES 


for the mind or for the body, might be suited to the in¬ 
habitants of some other planet, not, certainly, to those of 
our own. 

A year has elapsed, and on this anniversary of the be¬ 
ginning of the War I am dwelling, in common with the 
multitude whose interests I have shared from day to day, 
on emotions which have touched the foundations of feel¬ 
ing, and on sentiments, hitherto undreamed of in our philo¬ 
sophies, which have now become a permanent part of 
them. And when I ask myself what are the qualities which 
I shall ever associate with the England of the year just 
ended, I think of her sustained and self-forgetful hospital¬ 
ity to the refugees from a despoiled country, of the faith 
and charity with which occasions have been met, and of 
that imaginative outlook that has already given birth to 
the new type of courage. 

For the two years that we remained in London my 
mother continued her morning walks through the 
streets of the city, wandering unmolested in and out 
among the Thames dockyards, where steamers flying 
the Japanese flag wera unloading, resting on the 
benches of the parks and commons, now deserted ex¬ 
cept for a chance couple of soldiers or marines on 
leave, lunching in the overcrowded restaurants, and 
occupying, occasionally, a bench in the now half-empty 
pit of some theatre where a hastily assembled company 
of foreign actors strove to impart to England a new 
sense of international values. She was one with the 
people, and shared in the wistful hope, reflected on 
every countenance, of a short war that would lead 
out into a better future. 

In 1916, gathering her scattered Lares and Penates 
once more around her in Rhode Island, she became 
absorbed in the problems of home-making. At the 
age of seventy-seven she was still a superior house- 

[24] 


FANNY PURDY PALMER 


keeper and her love of order and beauty was reflected 
in the appointments of her simple home. She would 
go softly from room to room, straightening a rug or a 
chair, dusting, replacing, rearranging, until the whole 
house wore an air of comfort and pleasantness. Then 
she would sit down to her writing, and finally rest, 
seated in the window with a book in her hand. In the 
early twilight she would exercise her memory by re¬ 
peating French poetry, greeting me as I came in the 
door, with— 

Byzantins de Byzance, ecoutez h vos portes! 

or a spirited rendering of Mimi Pinson, with an im¬ 
pressive pause at the line— 

Mimi n’a pas r^me vulgaire ... 

I think that there must have been some French 
blood in mother’s veins, from the extreme delicacy of 
her life and her solicitude for fragile things, combined 
with a fearlessness in the presence of destructive 
forces. Revolutions, which she likens to— 

. . . mountain storms that gather unreminded 
Of some frail things that make for life’s adorning, 

she accepted as part of the order of the Universe. 
Nothing terrified her that was great, and she escaped 
the fever and fret of ordinary life, from the fact that 
she was content to remain an onlooker: 

To the cohorts the Gates are open wide . . . 

And are there none to fly and close the Gates? 

I—I—cannot—because with dreams I strove 

To end the verses I have penned to love— 

[25] 


OUTPOST MESSAGES 


And have no strength to go— 

But—presently 
To see 

What the Barbarians do within the Gate 
On the high terrace I will sit, and wait. 

The following summers, spent at Outpost Farm, 
came as an interlude and a breathing spell in the midst 
of the war. Here, my mother, with an ardor that 
eighty years of activity had not dimmed and an enthus¬ 
iasm more or less feigned, threw herself into our pro¬ 
ject for a small war garden, and hoed and watered and 
weeded. With the aid of a cord and a tape-measure 
she laid out a strawberry bed, and set tomato plants 
in the ground. She tied up refractory rose bushes with 
soft white strips of cloth, and trained the grapevine 
that grew beside the well. In her own particular corner 
of the woodshed she kept her bright new hammer, a 
slender screw-driver, some tacks and twine, and a 
rake, hoe, and trowel. The trowel she polished with 
an oily cloth. The hoe was never thrown carclessly 
to the ground, and from frequent contact with her 
white hands took on, in the course of time, an elegant, 
almost a distinguished appearance. In fact these tools, 
symmetrically arranged on hooks or shelves, resembled 
objects in a museum, rather than agricultural imple¬ 
ments. 

The garden work over, she rested for a while in 
the open doorway. Then she would put on a shade 
hat with long black velvet strings, and taking her 
walking staff that she kept beside the front door she 
would climb the hill in the direction of the blueberry 
patch. The path that wound up to the clearing was 
densely overgrown with bay and laurel and sumac, 
and as you entered the woods, disappeared altogether, 
but the trail was marked by a series of white hand- 
[26] 


FANNY PURDY PALMER 


kerchiefs that fluttered from the lower branches of 
certain trees, recognized as landmarks by the wan¬ 
derer. In the afternoon, after watching my garden 
operations from the depths of an immense easy chair 
she would make a second lonely excursion into the 
woods—this time, in search of firewood, waiting in 
some pleasant place with her load until I came to meet 
her. 

There is no doubt that the social upheaval following 
the war and the apparent defeat of many of her cher¬ 
ished hopes, broke upon my mother with a shock of 
bewilderment. But her strong and resolute nature 
rallied, and she set to work courageously to adjust her 
life anew. The will that regulated her life imposed 
a constraint that— 

Like the weight of Honour . . . 

Lies on the tides, and curbs each measured phrase; 

and, at the same time, left her free to work in harmony 
with a rhythmic order that she detected in ‘the ways 
obscure of the Plan,’ for— 

. . . when an Age is rent 
By storms of acquiescence and dissent, 

Then, as from strings responsive to no hand. 

Which chord or discord yield as we elect. 

There sounds a strain whence souls at birth are stirred; 
And from this rhythm—hard to understand. 

And from these measures—idle to reject— 

Life to the Law adds its compulsive word. 

Frail but erect, my mother continued her activities, 
revealing herself to a few in the charm of her conver¬ 
sation, the gaiety of her repartee, the gentle irony, 

[27] 


OUTPOST MESSAGES 


the eager sympathies, the hidden yearnings that com¬ 
bined to make up her elusive personality. 

During the last years of her life she was engaged 
upon three plays in which she undertook to develop 
her theory of an evolutionary progress dependent on 
the individual will. She detected in mass emotional¬ 
ism a tendency to intellectual and moral drift, and 
felt that for our own times, at least, a life of partial 
detachment was best calculated—paradoxical as it may 
seem—to develop in each one a sense of responsibility 
for all. For a solution of the complexities of social 
life she looked to a better understanding between men 
and women. “Less courageous people than we,” she 
writes, “are seeking relief from the friction of oppo¬ 
sitions in coalitions—mere palliatives. Our men and 
women are bound to find theirs in mutual comprehen¬ 
sion—which is cure.” 

Mrs. Palmer did not live to articulate distinctly a 
train of thought developed in seclusion. Like her 
Sibyl, she grew— 

Older and older; smaller; closer furled; 

Yet sharing not her wisdom with the world. 

At the same time, in sibylline fashion she gave much 
by concealing much, unaware that her life had been 
sufficiently prolonged to illustrate in the working of 
heart and mind and hand, the principle of the law of 
growth. She thought lightly of her sonnet to A Sibyl, 
saying that it was a mere pleasantry, and led nowhere. 
For she realized that the world pays small heed to one 
whose strength is spent, and who is to be regarded 
merely—as old. She looked, naturally, to youth for 
the pure enthusiasm that spills its fire on the shore. 
But she also found a certain quality in the old and 
in those who have undergone the more profound ex- 
[28] 


FANNY PURDY PALMER 

periences of life, as she scanned their faces for the 
‘"shining residue” that remains, as the complexities 
that obscure a simple nature fade away, and— 

. . . melting pot and world-wide winnowing fan 
Consume and bruise and sift, 

To leave at last more gold grains as their gift. 

HENRIETTA R. PALMER 

I 5 J Power Street 
Providence, R. 1 . 

October, 192$. 


[29] 


I 


CONTENTS 


OUTPOST FARM 

THE ROAD TO THE FARM . . *35 

BENNY . . . . -37 

FROST IN SEPTEMBER . . -39 

RELATIVITY. (THE FARM REVISITED) . 40 

IN THE AUTUMN WOODS . . .42 

THE WORLD WITHOUT 

THE desert's boon . . . .47 

INDIA . . . . .50 

ACESTIANS . . . . .51 

A PHARISEE UNBLAMED . . -53 

A SONNET SEQUENCE . . .54 

I. O, SHIP OF STATE. 1 776- 1922 . 

II. ANCESTORS. 1 776. 

III. TRAGEDY. 

WITHIN ASYLUM WALLS . . -57 

THE WORLD WITHIN 

TO SHELLEY . . . . . 6l 

MYSTICISM . . . . . 62 

THE SECRETS OF THE STREAM . . 64 

TRANSLATIONS 

AN OLD WOMAN SPINNING . . .69 

THE END OF THE EPOCH . . *73 






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A 


OUTPOST FARM 






Her form so small a leaf may now enfold, 

And screened therein her questioners she shuns :— 
Swift plays the light across her visage old 
Whose fire was kindled with the birth of Suns. 

She has her habitation in the trees, 

And mid their leafy traceries hides her lore: 

She speaks, with the soft lisp of homing bees, 

More and more rarely, words she spake before! 

Into her dreams her substance has been wrought; 
Passion and Grief have swept her as a lyre; 

Much has she given to the much besought. 

Till alls consumed, except her Sun-born fire! 

Older and older; smaller; closer furled; 

Yet sharing not her wisdom with the world. 

A SIBYL 

“Of the Valley and the Sea.” 


THE ROAD TO OUTPOST FARM 

I 

Narrow road, with turns misleading, 

Keep your secrets . . . few will know— 
Since so close you cling to Nature— 
Whence you came ... or where you go. 

II 

In the Spring when Arethusa 
Robes herself in pearly rose. 

Cautious steps within your meadows 
Sometimes find the spot she chose . . . 

III 

June comes: Shadows guard your waysides; 
Undespoiled their depths within 
Blooms the laurel ... In its shelter 
There's the Indian Moccasin . . . 

IV 

August noon-day. . .While I'm resting— 
Summer dullness to beguile— 

Lop-eared rabbit comes to greet me— 
With his predatory smile!— 


[ 3 S] 


V 

And a martin from the treetop 
Speculating on it all, 

Hears the crows beyond the cornfield 
Issuing a council call ; 

VI 

As through Nature’s deep intrenchments 
Sterner, narrower, goes the way, 

O, my road of many treasures, 

Where strange actors have their day. 

VII 

Dost thou think, Road unassuring. 

That we mortals are astray 
When we claim within thy fortress. 
Lordship over such as they? 

VIII 

Then the Road—that never answers— 
Mounts and mounts and disappears, 
Through an altitude revealing 
Wild grapes!—where an opening clears. 


[36] 


BENNY 

Benny is nine . . . shy . . . spare . . . 

Serious eyes . . . home-clipped hair . . . 

Benny will greet you with, “Hello!”— 

Or, pressed with a question, “Yes” or “No.” 
(Unbranded as yet with manners, this child. 

Who is foster-brother to things of the wild). 

W • • 

But Benny can ride the horse to plow 
And find the cows when they're lost in the wood, 
And his grandpa says; “Benny’s pretty good”:— 
For he’s not afraid of the dark or the rain; 

Nor at all alarmed by a snake or a bat— 

(Though he wears no shoes and he wears no hat.) 

t«i • .1 . 

All summer he journeys the length of the lane 
At an hour when the Shapes in the woods are not 
plain— 

With our evening milk and the daily mail . . . 

Of all he may see on his mile-long way 
Not one word does he deign to say; 

But he and his dog will glance at each other 
As if they had some feelings to smother . . . 


[37] 


With one small hand he steadies the can; 

One bare arm encircles the mail, 

Till he places both on the door-step stone 
And then like a swallow, swoops for home. 

Boy and dog through the woods recede . . . 

Benny, fleet-footed, keeping the lead . . . 

Whither wending, small urchin with questioning eyes ? 
You will never be docile or worldly-wise . . . 

But I think you’ll have inklings of life as a whole. 
Perhaps you are but a disguise for a Soul . . . 


[38] 


FROST IN SEPTEMBER 


A hush stole over the Dawn 
At the sight 

Of a gossamer veil of crystal white 
Flung over the hills and fields 
In the night— 

And the purple Crackles lowered their flight. 

A night to regret! . . . When Summer 
Her victor met . . . 

Their meeting was known to the Moon alone— 
They parted so soon— 

But the conquered may not forget. 


[39] 


RELATIVITY 
(the farm revisited) 

The bucket and the chain that swung so free 

In the Well, are stiff with frost and hung 

With Icicles. . . . The oval Pond 

Lies, like a mirror of clear glass without a crack. . 

Beyond . . . are Birches ... You might call 

Their bark snow-white if it were not 

In contrast with the snow 

That crusts the road unfurrowed by a track. 

The vacant house—untenanted these 
Four months now—asks nothing of the Solitude . 
The windows stare. . . . The unused lock 
Resists the pressure of its key. . . . 

The floor on which I tread creaks solemnly. 

A Soul that fluttered back . . . for a brief interval . 
Into the Body which ... a moment since . . . 
Had been its dwelling place ... 

Might find—as I within this recent home of mine— 
Familiar objects 

That have lost their meaning: 


[40] 


There is the Hearth ... I might make up a fire . . . 

. . There’s life in fire!—But it’s soon gone! . . . 

So first I’ll fill this empty Vase 
With living greens from out of doors, 

Say Juniper . . Juniper? . . The little branch 

Would wonder why’t was wrenched 
From its own symmetry! 

Old letters lie around . . last Summer’s messages : 

I liked them once . . . But now 

Their errand’s ended! 

How strange a voice has Solitude! 

How seldom have I heard all it can say! 

But now; ^Begone! You are not needed here to-day!^ 


IN THE AUTUMN WOODS 
I 

Fires of the Sumach burn and die 
In the windless woods, and withal— 

Aliens amid the pageantry— 

Are the Pines, blue-green, and tall! 

II 

Here the wealth of the forest lies— 

Conjuror’s coinage!—at my feet. 

'End of an epoch!* a new voice cries: 

... A ground bird twitters 'Defeat!* 

III 

A youthful owl from his port-hole peers 
At some little brown mice that run 
On their cushioned toes, with their stiffened ears 
When he spares their lives for fun! 

IV 

And the armored cruisers of Summer air 
Are swarming about a tree 
Where honey is stored—which none may share 
With this armored company . . . 


[42] 


V 

Fallacy lurks in the golden weather, 

Flaws appear in the fair design: 

Age and Winter are coming—together:— 
Doom to the trailing Vine! . . . 

VI 

Yet the uplift gay of the Chipmunk’s feather 
Flaunts, like a flag on the wall; 

And around me—^proud and calm as ever!— 
Are the Pines—^blue-green and tall. 


[43] 




THE WORLD WITHOUT 


Yet is there solace for his hampered lot 
Whose hurts are laid ^neath patient Nature^s spell; 
Feast of the eye, thrill of the heart are not 
Her purpose set. Sufficient 't is and well 
When pain and joy have borne their fruitage ripe. 
She finds within her world some nobler type. 

IN THE MAKING 
“Sonnets of California*' 


THE DESERTS BOON 


We stopped at Caliente, I remember,— 

Where the Transcontinentals pass, 

East-bound, and west . . . 

. . . Some half-breeds puttering with clay; 

A station with a tiny plot of grass; . . . 

Shine of snow-flurried sandhills far away: 

. . . The desert in December. 

Five minutes . . . and our train was moving on . . 
A restless fellow passenger remarked 
“I think we changed our engineer: I will 

find out’\ . . He rose . . . Then, suddenly, 
“Look at this cabin near the water tank!— 

There is a name—in chalk—upon the door! 

Haven of Hearfs desire . . . 

And,—there’s his pony and his coil of wire!” 

A smile went round . . . next he was asked:— 

That object flashing back the sun—off there?— 

“O, that ?— A. desert tent . . . some sick man’s home.” 
At this a pause . . . then he, in lowered tone:— 

“A fellow who is wanted—slipped the 
guard, last week, right here. . . . 

And really, so it seems, did disappear.” 


[47] 


That night I dreamed the Desert was 
the Universe, 

And men came to its bar to learn 
their doom ... 

The sick man died . . . whispering 
I am no worse . . . 

(To such the desert sometimes gives this boon.) 

The fugitive—untraced—began 

With hunger, and lost hope, to expiate 

The harm he'd done. . . . Released 

At last to the uncensuring Whole 

Whose laws supreme divulge that 
sequent sphere 

For which each Soul perverse 
May be regenerate. . . 

The owner of the cabin flagged the train 
I travelled by . . . Entering he bore 

Well-filled portfolio . . . and a sack of ore . . . 

His eyes said,—O, you need not welcome me 
... I live alone . . . 

And turning to the desert, shone: 

1 shall come hack to you—my own! 


[48] 


I waked . . . and felt the throbbing of the train 
Upon its way:— 

And saw—face pressed to window pane,— 
Starry Dark yield to the wooing Light; 

The widening Desert, and another Day! 


[49] 


INDIA 


. . . While India dreams . . . 

Her passion-flowers entwine 
Their knotted tendrils round her fettered wrists . . . 
She cannot lift the veil whose mists enshrine 
The Orient's secret in her troubled breast. . . . 
Nor yet define 

Its meaning to the cold ear of the West. 

Her eyes impassioned, read,— 

Scribed on the tables of an ancient Age,— 

These immemorial overtures, which plead 
When body unto Soul deputes the lead:— 

Thine heart to Pity give . . . 

Thine hand to aid . . . 

Thy goods beyond thy need, 

With all humility renounce :— 

Her eyes may read . . . her lips may not pronounce 
This formula ... It holds 
A solvent for the sorrows of the world: 

. . . Even yet its terms may reach 
Our hurts . . . without interpolated speech . . . 

. . . Otherwise ... Be they heard 
In human surge, which safely bears— 

Thro' ebb and flow and undertow— 

To shore, its motive word! . . . 

[50] 


ACESTIANS 

I 

They say, it was the women burned the fleet 
So that ^neas now could sail no more 
From Sicily . . . They found Acestia fair;— 

With grey globed olives, heavy clustered grapes 
And ripening grain . . . Life brought them joy 
To mitigate the memory of Troy. 

So:—They made choice^—one night— 

And set the boats upon the beach alight . . . 
Watching, until they’d burned . . . Then 
To their waiting mates returned 
And cried, “Rejoice. Our wanderings are o’er. 

. . . Our safety won We may escape 
Oblivion.” 

II 

At dawn ... a sound of oars . . . from off the Sea. 
A remnant fleet ... a winnowed company. 

.^neas at the prow . . . 

Ahead . . . uncertainty . . . 


[51] 


III 

Yet think not all the women of Acestia 
Stayed behind when thus he sailed . . . 

Some did not shirk their share 
Of perilous adventuring: 

IV 

Did Carthage burn: Did Dido fail,— 

They too were there— 

Part of the wreckage such bold quests entail: 

. . Not unaware 

That, for their scars, untarnished heraldry 
One day they’d wear. 

Now this of these dead women I relate. 
Because one whom I know—herself a ghost— 
Talked with their ghosts, of late. 

One evening—in Albano. 


[ 52 ] 



A PHARISEE UNBLAMED 

Ended at length is her long, small life, 
Lacking in passion or power 
To pull up, or pull out, in the strife . . . 

Content with a minor role. 

She built no accessible tower 
As breathing place for her soul. 

Yet a stalwart she and loyal friend, 
(This memory dear is mine 
And it makes for all else an amend.) 

For this, at the parting here. 

With such memories I will entwine 
The flowers that dress her bier. 


[53] 


A SONNET SEQUENCE 


I 

O, SHIP OF STATE. I776-I922 

O, Ship of State—lauftched on the current strong 
Of tidal hour that would not brook delay!— 

Taut was thy rigging to withstand decay, 

O, gallant risk!—^They did not build thee wrong 
For the rough voyage thou must still prolong 
Over uncharted and adventurous way!— 

And captains bold in sacrifice were they 
Who took the helm! . . . Others, the crew among. 
Withered, and went their way . . . So, nobly manned; 
Course, bravely planned; with boundless hopes 
equipped; 

To port you came!—with floating flag that dipped 
To pledge the promise all should understand! . . . 

Now, world-wide waves our good Ship's ribs explore. 
And Memory’s heroes guide her course no more. 


[54] 


II 

ANCESTORS. 1776 

My ancestors, 't is true, stood by their King: 
Resigned their homesteads to the People’s will. 

And in Tioga’s wilds—were loyal still. 

They might have done some much unworthier thing 
Than, exiled in the wilderness to bring 
The dignity of Liberty; the thrill 
Of self-set labors all, in turn, fulfill 
Under unwritten laws that left no sting. 

On sombre slabs of Cemetery stones 
Their names remain. I, as a child, have heard 
One centenarian talk of those interred 
These stones beneath . . . where now the wind be¬ 
moans 

In ghostly tones of wonderment and pain 
That freedom—which the world did not attain. 


[55] 


Ill 

TRAGEDY 

He was a roofer, roofing in the sun;— . 

The August sun, in torrid city street;— 

But all the glare and stifle of the heat 

Made him not glad to know his work near done: 

His home . . . sick wife . . . the new-born little 

one . . . 

Few comforts in their crowded zone . . . defeat 
Of all the plans he never could complete . . . 

Such reasonable plans.—^Why—why—unwon! 

And yet in this dark hour he must be strong! 

So, courage! courage!—fastening the tile ... 

He hears a voice ... '0, Mitri, come! She's gone!' 
He stares . . . the roof's edge sudden looks a mile . . . 
His hammer drops—like summons to a fall . . . 

He staggers on . . . trying to grasp it all! 


[56] 


WITHIN ASYLUM WALLS 


Oh, Mary was alone that night— 

For Patrick did not come . . . 

No: Patrick came not home that night! 
And Mary was alone. 

At dawn—her baby at her breast,— 
From railroad track and train 
They rescued her . . . arrested her . . 
And said she was insane. 

For forty years her home has been 
Inside Asylum wall . . . 

And unto two or three ifs known 
She’s not insane at all. * 

She scours the kitchen cans and pans. 
She’s shrewd and smart and strong . . 
And daily saves a little ^hare 
Of food—to carry home. 

Mind’s clock will stop, like any clock 
Upset, and shoved around— 

The hands can never feel their hour 
Until the key is found. 


[57] 


But chiefly, what the State will pay, 

When they shall let her out:— 

How much her board; how much her wage 
Is what she talks about. 

Strange folks who call her 'Mother' come 
As years go oii,—to call . . . 

She looks at them distrustfully. . . . 

My children are all small. 

She's brave about the kitchen work— 

No longer smart or strong;— 

She's eighty now—and more than that,— 
She cannot keep on long . . . 

So, Patrick's dead . . . and far and wide 
Their scattered children are . . . 

But as she left them there that night, 

To Mary, still they are. 


[58] 


THE WORLD WITHIN 


Vine on the wall of my English home, 

March hath brought thee a draught of wine! 

Drink of the cup, with its headed foam. 

To the day of thy life, 0 Vine! 

Swinging to feel where the west winds go; 

Swaying to follow the blackhird^s call; 

Everything tells thee the world to know 
Is the world outside of thy wall! 

Yet still to its stones thy buds are pressed. 

And thy heart never holds a doubt 
That constancy to thy wall is best. 

Though the rest have not found this out! 

And by and by when the roses fall. 

And the teller of secrets is mute. 

Content art thou to adorn this wall 
With a glory of leaves and fruit. 

While the narrow gateway's breadth and length 
Will be clamped around and about 
With rivets, wrought of thine own brave strength. 
And—closed to the world without! 

POSSESSION 
‘ Dates and Days in Europe” 


TO SHELLEY 


Frail,—swift,—with longings, beyond life, aflame,— 
And revelations ! Voice that Nature knows 
Thou had’st to speak with! and the toppling snows 
And Ocean winds that at thy calling came 
Brought ardor like thine own—that naught could 
tame! 

Thence sounds, abrupt, thy challenge to disclose 
The sorrows Insincerities impose;— 

The wrongs which we disguise by righteous name! 

From the far Unapparent, came to thee 
Strength for the utterance of prophecy;— 

For—more than poet —thou wert poetry! 


[6i] 


MYSTICISM 

{Originally entitled, A Builder) 

I 

There is a structure of the Yesterdays— 
Builded in Space immense— 

Whose great Designer meant that it should be 
A dwelling place for pure Intelligence: 

Palatial are its lines . 

Carven and coined by Thought 
The Portal set apart 

For Sage, for student, and the pure in heart: 

. . . Rays, from the Dome down sent. 

Are as the shelter of a firmament. 

II 

. . .Within are chambers vast— 

Lighted as by the light of dawns overcast . . . 

. . . From vaulted hall 
A keen air blows thro’ all . . . 

. . . Steep Stairs wind upward 
From the trodden floor— 

Like ladders seen in dreams whose end we seek- 
But see no more! 

And toiling ever on these Stairs are they 


[62] 


Who long have bent the knee 
Unto Immanual Kant's philosophy:— 

Still groping toward the steeper height, 

For stronger light 
Whereby to face 

The Master's final, flinching ‘Postulate' 

Which he has bidden them to “tolerate." 

Ill 

. . . This Palace fair 
A prison of Illusions has become 
As Time moves on . . . 

The walls seem narrower: the ceiling low . . . 
Voices that once were clear— 

Are dumb. 

The baffling Stairs are peopled now 
With Shades of Doubt . . . 

The Portal that the toilers entered by 
Swings inward,—^but not Out!— 

. . . Some would, perhaps, escape from there. 

They might, indeed, escape. 

But—^where? . . . 

“However, pure reason itself is not free from illusions 
of an anthropomorphic nature and in the last resort we 
must tolerate a subtle anthropomorphism.” 

KANT’S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON 


[63] 




THE SECRETS OF THE STREAM 


So broad, so deep, the Stream that all we know 
Of living things are carried on its breast 
By the persuasive and compelling flow 

That carries none distinctive from the rest 
But all to others bound, by common link, 

As are the waves that bear us on—impressed 

To that succession, wherefrom none may shrink. 
But with the mighty waters, pausing not, 

Make their majestic passage toward the brink. 

Faintly remembered, quite—at times—forgot. 
The meanings of the Stream, for you and me. 
Saving those speculations on a lot— 

Tethered to destinies we cannot see,— 

And for the startled wonder of the mind 
At what we are,—and what we yet may be! 

For never have these rapid waves defined 
Rights or rewards that lure us to exist: 

But each, himself, alone, the way shall find;— 


[64] 


Alone, appraise the errors that persist 
As, onward home by silent current strong. 

We know no pause—^wherein we might desist. 

Span of the hour desires cannot prolong; 

Our All—with it— we render to the Whole. 

More,—^better,—we might give:—^We"re borne along. 

Proud waves flash back their pictures of the Soul: 
Swift rapids toss to foam the dreams of youth 
Which grasp the glittering bubbles, to enroll 

Their radiant dazzle as the gleam of Truth!— 

While the recording waters, on their way 
Make transcripts clear of what we are—forsooth I 

Of deeds; of dreams; of all the parts we play; 

Of sacrifices that we spare our fate! . . . 

Till the link breaks . . . and with serene delay 

Deep slumber comes—Life’s pains to palliate;— 
While Being transubstantiate attends 
The issue of its new novitiate. ... 


[65] 


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TRANSLATIONS 


LE PASS^: QUI FILE 
By Gregoire Le Roy 

La vieille file, et son rouet 
Parle de vieilles, vieilles choses; 

La vieille a les paupieres closes, 

Et croit fiercer un vieux jouet. 

Le chanvre est filond, la vieille est filanche. 
La vieille file lentement, 

Et pour mieux I’ecouter, se penche 
Sur le rouet fiavard qui ment. 

Sa vieille main tourne la roue 
L'autre file le chanvre filond. 

La vieille toume, tourne en rond, 

Se croit petite et qu’elle joue. 

Le chanvre qu'elle file est blond, 

Elle le voit et se croit blonde; 

La vieille toume, tourne en rond 
El la vieille danse la ronde. 


[68] 


AN OLD WOMAN SPINNING 
By Gregoire Le Roy (Belgian) 

A woman is spinning . . . The whirling wheel 
Talks to her thoughts of old, old, things, 

And her eyelids droop as it whirls and sings 
In drowsy murmurs, till she with joy 

Seems to be hugging some childish toy. 

The flax is blonde . . . the spinner is blanched . . 

She is leaning forward to hear 
What it is that babbles in her ear 
From the wheel as it flies 
Filling her thoughts with its pleasing lies. 

One wrinkled hand is guiding the wheel; 

With the other she twirls the flax. 

But her old, old, self is far astray— 

Though the spinning does not relax . . . 

Soft and blonde is the tress she spins . . . 

Soft and blonde are her tresses, too . . . 

And her feet are light as she twirls 
In the round 

Choosing her partner anew. 


[69] 


Le rouet tourne doucement, 

Et le chanvre file de meme; 

Elle ecoute un ancien amant 
Murmurer doucement qu’il Taime. 

Le rouet tourne un dernier tour, 

Les mains s’arretent desolees, 

Car les souvenances d^amour 
Avec le chanvre etaient filees. 

(^Mon Coeur pleure d*autrefois.) 

Editions du Mercure de France. 


[70] 


Drowsily, slowly the wheel whirls on . . . 
Straightening and winding the soft blonde thread, 
Softly a voice in her ear speaks low 
Words, that were once so true;— 

**Sweetheart . . . listen . . . I . . . love you”. . . 

The wheel has twirled in its final round, 

And the ends of the flax are smoothly wound . . . 

Now where is the partner she chose for the dance? 
And where is the lover whose love she won? 
Startled, she stares, with a desolate glance . . . 

There is nothing here but the yarn she has spun. 


[71] 


LA FIN DE LA RONDE 

Byzantins de Byzance, ecoutez a vos portes! 

Les pas des barbares cohortes 
Endeuillent le silence 
De rudes cadences 

Et chantent les effrois de la venue prochaine 
Dans le vent tiede de la plaine. 

Aujourd’hui les chansons et la mort pour demain! 
Toute la volupte du vin 
Dont nos amours s'enivrent 
Et la joie des livres 

Qui chantent Tepopee languide de leur gloire 
Encore au fond de nos memoires; 

Et les carillons clairs de mille campaniles, 

Et tous nos grands dieux puerils 
Aux yeux d’etranges pierres 
Illustres et claires 

Ou les pretres tremblants voyaient dans I’avenir 
Les hordes barbares venir; 

Demain, demain et tout au gai soleil levant. 

Sera de la poussiere au vent! 

Aux barbares, nos filles 
Donneront, tranquilles 

En la perfide joie des grands sourires vagues, 

De leurs longs doigts blanc Tor des bagues. 

[72] 


THE END OF THE EPOCH 


Byzantines of Byzantium, at your Gates 
The rude Barbarian Cohort waits! 

Listen! a roar appals, 

And silence falls, 

As terror grows 

At shouts flung to the desert wind that blows. 

Today, today, our song. Tomorrow, death. 

Yet not to fear we’ll yield our latest breath. 

For love and wine may bribe 
Our poets to describe 
This languid epoch at its ebbing tide. 

And to the future tell 
Stories of campanile and bell. 

And of those futile gods within whose eyes 
Strange, jeweled lights did to the priests portend 
Byzantium’s conquest and her glory’s end. 

Tomorrow, when we face the risen sun. 

The bold invaders’ conquest will be won. 

With a deceitful joy our daughters meet 
The conqueror’s smiles. 

And from their long white fingers draw the rings 
To make him golden offerings. 


[73] 


Les esclaves haineux ont deja fui les portcs 
Et vont au-devant des cohortes 
Porteurs de nos tresors; 

Nos icones d'or, 

Nos lamentables christs sur email rose et bleu, 

Aux longs regards vagues et creux; 

Nos vierges, aux yeux pleins de mysteres charnels, 
Nos reliques et nos missels, 

De nos defunts espoirs 
Souvenirs d’ivoire . . . 

Et le rire joyeux des grands enfants barbares 
Eclate a Taspect de nos gloires! 

Oh! ce rire, ce rire, et sa joie grande et saine! 
Helas I et sa joie courte et vaine . . . 

O grands enfants sauvages 
Grands enfants tres sages, 

Puissiez-vous ne jamais sentir au fond du coeur 
Que rien ne vaut qu’on rie ou pleure. 

Et venez, gais porteurs de la mort en nos joies! 
Nos fronts que la fatigue ploie 
De trop de choses sues 
Attendent vos massues . . . 

Donnez, vous qui savez Timmensite de vivre, 

Au feu la sagesse des livres . . . 


[74] 


Already from the Gates the slaves have fled 
And at the cohort's head 
Our stolen treasures bear,— 

Ikons of gold. 

The melancholy Christ pictured on rose and blue. 
And virgins* eyes abrim with unshed tears. 

Relics and Missals rare 
Afar they bear,— 

Of our dead hopes the ivory souvenirs . . . 

While the Barbarian children laugh aloud 
To have despoiled our City rich and proud. 

They laugh aloud! Their joy is keen and sane. 
Alas, for joy so brief and vain! 

Great children—and yet wise— 

Some day for your surprise 
Life will explain 

*Tis all the same whether one laughs or cries. 

And yet, oh gay iconoclasts, return! 

Our brows are furrowed with fatigue 
Of all we know. 

And we would learn 

Whence comes the secret of your buoyant strength. 
The confidence and calmness of your looks. 
Give, you who know the boundless scope of life, 
Unto the flames the wisdom of our books! 

[75] 


Ainsi se clot le reve et les chansons se taisent! 

Les folks bouches qui me baisent 
Ont des rales d’effroi ... 

Je ne sais . . . en moi 

II chante encor comme un oiseau dans une tombe. . , » 
Rentrez, acteurs, la toile tombe! 

Toutes pprtes au large ouvertes aux cohortes! 

Ah! qui courra fermer les portes! 

Car moi, trop las du reve 
Des vers que j'acheve 

Je ne puis et j’irai tout au plus pour les voir 
Au haut des terrasses m'asseoir. 

Paul Gerardy 


[76] 


So ends the dream. In silence ends the Song. 
The lips that kissed no more their kiss prolong. 
I—cannot find my part amid the gloom . . . 

My song is as a bird’s song in a tomb. 

In vain we’ll seek some motive which enthralls . 
Spent actors of the past, the curtain falls! 

To the cohorts the Gates are open wide . . . 
And are there none to fly and close the Gates! 
I—I—cannot—because with dreams I strove 
To end the verses I have penned to Love— 
And have no strength to go, 

But—^presently 
To see 

What the Barbarians do within the Gate 
On the high terrace I will sit, and wait. 


[77] 








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